SEOUL, Jan. 9 (Xinhua) -- The vice foreign ministers of South Korea and Japan are scheduled to hold talks next week in their first meeting since Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe took office, the ministry here said Wednesday.
South Korea's first vice foreign minister Ahn Ho-young and his Japanese counterpart Chikao Kawai will meet Thursday in Tokyo for one-day talks meant to overview the Seoul-Tokyo ties, according to the ministry.
The Vice-Ministerial Strategic Dialogue, launched in 2005, will also involve discussions on issues related to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and Northeast Asia, the ministry said in a statement.
The meeting comes after Abe's envoys visited last week South Korea's president-elect Park Geun-hye, who is set to replace incumbent Lee Myung-bak next month.
Park, a conservative, inherits a fraught relationship with the country's former colonial occupier as South Korea and Japan remain at odds over a slew of historical issues ranging from wartime sex slaves to long-running disputes over a set of islets.
While domestic issues dominated the presidential campaign, the president-elect has said the disputed islets are not subject to negotiations and urged Japan to "squarely face" the issues.
Her father, late dictator Park Chung-hee, signed in 1965 a controversial treaty normalizing diplomatic ties with Japan, which touched off fierce student protests here.
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